A Light to Guide Me Home
by corposantlight
Summary: Because he always finds her, and she always saves him from the woods.


"Kill me."

Her voice was a ragged whisper: chewed up by grit and metal, worn down by time. When she glanced up, it came with a sharp hiss as bones creaked under strain.

"Do it," the green-eyed girl commanded. "Kill me. Get it over with."

If the darkness heard her, it knew not to respond. Instead, it folded over her, swallowed her whole. A panicked scream wrenched past her lips as she batted against the shadows. They rippled and swayed like water. She tried to touch them, but they just melted away.

"Cowards!" she shrieked, and tried to suppress her sobs. They came barrelling out anyway. "You can't even do your job! You should have killed me!" Her body sagged. The cold realisation settled into her bones. "You should have killed me," she muttered.

 _Should have taken me out when you had the chance._

Now there was just this. The endless nothing. The pause before something big.

She had tried to hold out hope in the beginning. Flung careless words into the abyss, desperate to scrabble onto whatever hook sailed her way. Nothing came back. No cold retort. No sarcastic remark. No bloody insults.

Nothing but the weighty pause of knowing she had lost—knowing the nightmare would never end, because it was real. Terrifyingly real, only she had never acknowledged that until now.

 _They'll find me,_ she had warned them, grinning through razor-edged teeth as blood-red spit flew free. _Just you wait. They're coming for me. And I'll get you. I'll get you._

They had just chuckled, she recalled. The sounds dug into her skull, drilling deeper, deeper until they found the fleshy pulp and scooped it out with electric fingers. They left her stuttering on the floor; a broken thing; a weak little thing that couldn't remember her own name.

 _They'll come,_ she had whispered—her promise to the dark, to the shadows that watched but never stirred. _You'll see. They'll come for me. They have to._

The funny thing about hope is that, sooner or later, it has the tendency to wither. She couldn't nurture it. She had never been particularly good at caring. Not for the things that mattered. Not for him. She knew that now. Should have told him how she felt—with words he actually knew.

 _Love._ That was a big word. There was power in that word.

Love had the power to kill. But it could also save. And she needed that. She hungered for it.

In the dark, her fingers seized against the cobbled stone, wrenching mud between her nails like a wolf snarling for blood. She needed the connection; needed to find her roots. But the earth was cold and dead, and whatever she was looking for could not be found. There were no hearts buried beneath the soil. She didn't even remember where that thought had struck her from.

 _Still think they're coming for you?_ a slippery voice—a snake, a hissing, ugly snake—said. They were teasing her now. Not even really baiting her; just prodding to make sure the mouse still squeaked.

She didn't have the energy to lift her head. She grunted instead, huffing at strands of greasy hair as they slowly curtained her face again. But she saw the smirk. His greedy jaws were spread wide, delighted, before those tattered lips closed over knife-like fangs, and the door swung shut.

The air refused to cleanse of blood. It pumped through her veins, melted between her fingers, oozed from broken skin. She sniffed, then wiped her nose. It came away sticky, warm.

 _They have to come for me,_ she thought, and tucked her hand close. She crushed her fingers into her chest, forcing the ribs aside until she could trace the panicked beats of her dying heart. _They have to._

Eventually, there was nothing left to feel. Hope was fleeting. It came and went, came and went, like waves at sea. She tried to scoop it up with her bare hands, but it just flowed away—filtered through the cracks.

 _I'm broken,_ she thought. _I'm broken, broken, broken._

 _Where are your friends, now?_ the snake voice taunted. _You're just rags and bones. A dead thing._

 _Don't know why he insists she stay alive,_ another one muttered. She captured crisp, dark hair curling at the nape of a thin, swan-like neck—and then the eyes. Like ice. Like winter's breath frozen over. His lip tugged up into a sneer, and added, _Not long now. She'll be gone in a matter of days, I reckon._

 _You'd better hope not, boy,_ the snake said, rattled. There was a soft intake of breath—she sensed someone withdraw—and a scuffle that ended in seconds. _For whatever reason, he wants this one alive. She knows something. Whatever it is, we need it. So keep your wits about you! Don't get distracted…_

A husky laugh choked at the back of her throat. The voices faded out, and suddenly she felt their eyes on her. The mouse was awake.

 _You're all dead,_ she said, and threw another laugh their way. She felt the air crackle where their bodies leapt aside, a string of curses floating in their wake. _I'm going to get you. I'll get you back. I'll—_

The laugh became a scream. Her eyes burned as the stone ceiling gaped back, its lips parted wide, wide, wider. Her body kicked and writhed, smacking the air, grappling with it, begging for a light, a candle, a torch to peel the darkness back. It was everywhere. The knives. The stabbing.

Her scream curdled like milk. She kicked and cried and ran, but the floor didn't move. She was a slab of ice. She was being chipped away. Block after block. Thought after thought. Everything unravelled. Everything was gone.

When the screams drowned in a pool of blood, the snakes started laughing.

 _To think, I actually envied her once. Now look at her._

 _Guess it's true what they say,_ the snake hissed. She flinched back; curled into herself; a shell once again. _Their blood_ is _dirty._

 _Dirty, dirty, dirty._

Yes, that's what she was. Mud. A stick in the mud. Hadn't someone called her that once? Tuna. Fish. Nasty pong of a smell. It congealed in your throat, strangled words into laughter and laughter to tears. Tuna. Tuna. Tuney. Petunias. Sister.

Sister Petunia.

She smiled, or had the faintest idea that she did.

 _Sister sister, got me a blister, sister sister—_

— _open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one—_

— _sister sister, why do you glister, sister sister—_

— _for my head is wet with dew, my locks with the drops of the night—_

"Can you hear me?"

— _she's dead, isn't she? My sister is dead—_

"She's not waking up! Why isn't she waking up?"

— _yes, she's dead; definitely dead: she's not waking up, she's sleeping in eternal rest—_

"Lily, can you hear me? It's James. I need you to wake up. I need—"

— _why is she sleeping? Why does the bitter flower wilt when I am gone? She resented me, I know she did. I blocked the sun, I drained her dry, I—_

"Lily, please wake up. We're here. All of us are here for you. Just…give us a sign, all right? Something. Can you hear me?"

— _I hear you. I hear you, usurper. James. James of the Pureblood and messy hair. Of fast-beating hearts and crooked grins. Of soft lips and sharp nose, and fine jaw and sad eyes, and happy eyes and hazel eyes like the forest and the earth and—_

"Come back to me. I'm here, like I promised. I'll always find you, Lily. Always. But now you have to find me. I'm—I…I need you back, okay? We all need you. So—if you can hear me: do your job, Lily. Do your job and come find me. I need you to rescue me from the woods."

— _he's lost. I'm lost. We're all so hopelessly lost. But it's all right. It's all right. I'll come back for you. Don't I always?_

And she twitched and smiled, and her hand curled over the sheets before her wandering fingers found warmth in silk and skin, and she knew— _she knew she knew she knew_ —that she had found her way back to him.

"Lily," his rugged voice said.

"James," she breathed, eyes still closed, heart wide open. "I found you." And when she opened her eyes, the Gryffindor King—her husband, _he's mine_ —grinned like the clouds had finally parted after a bad storm and he could now see the light.

"Welcome back." His hands cupped her face— _and it was so right; so incredibly right_ —and she started to laugh against the tears as the world settled like a feather on the ground, because everything made sense again. She was safe and she was free, and there was light pooling from every pour of his skin. He was radiant, and he was hers, and she was finally— _always_ —free.


End file.
